The mass-market brewers can actually produce potable beers when they try: Coors, source of such atrocities as Coors Extra Gold and Zima, used to sell a decent ale as Killian's, and for all I know still makes a tolerable Winterfest. Every so often I get suckered into buying a fake micro-brew put out by one of the big guys, and usually I'm disappointed.

Michelob Centennial is "premium blended using only the finest barley malt, hops, yeast, and water," according to the label. In this statement, Anheuser-Busch implies that this beer would have been legal under the old German Reinheitsgebot, which allowed no other ingredients, but at the same time weasels out: blended with what? Animal urine? The word "only" could give them legal trouble. Such phrases as "premium beer" and "Michelob tradition of quality" are tocsins, and "premium blend" is as much an oxymoron as "luxury apartment."

This beer is amber, and is hopped with more than the usual Saaz, though I couldn't place the other hops. It's very sweet and unusually sticky for an A.-B. beer, with not enough bittering hops. Even when cold it's definitely malty, but even then it also has what I call "the cheap taste": the off-taste of adjuncts. I suppose that this is from the blending.

At a temperature suitable for good beers, Michelob Centennial has a definite alcohol bite which the malty flavor doesn't balance. The dark malts that make it amber also improve its taste, but the adjunct flavors overwhelm everything else and make it unpleasant to drink. I couldn't finish my review bottle, which is just as well because I'm getting fat. (Perhaps I should review nothing but mass-market beers for a few months. I'm also tempted to do a taste-test of all the low-calorie and low-alcohol beers I can find.)